Agency in Fertility Decisions in Western Europe During the Demographic Transition:A Comparative Perspective

We use a set of linked reproductive histories taken from Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain for the period 1871–1960 to address key issues regarding how reproductive change was linked specifically to mortality and survivorship and more generally to individual agency. Using event-history analysis, this study investigates how the propensity to have additional children was influenced by the number of surviving offspring when reproductive decisions were made. The results suggest that couples were continuously regulating their fertility to achieve reproductive goals. Families experiencing child fatalities show significant increases in the hazard of additional births. In addition, the sex composition of the surviving sibset also appears to have influenced reproductive decisions in a significant but changing way. The findings offer strong proof of active decision-making during the demographic transition and provide an important contribution to the literature on the role of mortality for reproductive change

The internal migration of immigrants: Differences between one-time and multiple movers in Spain

Research on the mobility and residential patterns of immigrants within receiving countries is abundant. The selective nature of movers and the location of immigrants are issues that have received special attention. Most studies are premised on the supposition that immigrants move only once. However, for a number of immigrants, internal migration is a dynamic process in which more than one movement is involved. This article extends the literature by disaggregating immigrants according to their number of internal migrations. We use data from a new and rich retrospective survey to examine the determinants of migration trajectories and the effects of the location choices of immigrants. We elaborate a set of indicators to assess the importance of the spatial assimilation theory and other main theoretical frameworks. This article concentrates on Spain, a recent main migratory destination in Europe and worldwide. Results reveal the existence of significant differences between one-time and multiple movers. The selective nature of multiple movers is explained in part by the spatial assimilation paradigm. Further results show that both one-time and multiple movers tend to reside outside ethnic concentrations as a result of their mobility experience within Spain

Mortality decline and reproductive change during the Dutch demographic transition: revisiting a traditional debate with new data

BACKGROUND According to classic demographic transition theory, mortality change is the key factor that triggers a decline in fertility. Research on this topic has mostly relied on aggregate or time series data. Since fertility is based on the joint decisions of couples when confronted with specific fertility-childhood mortality outcomes, a focus on the experiences of individual couples is needed. Recently, Reher and Sanz-Gimeno used this approach to analyze individual longitudinal data for the Spanish town of Aranjuez. OBJECTIVE We investigate whether, in a country and in populations characterized by varying cultural and socioeconomic circumstances, family organization, and demographic regimes, the same mechanisms influenced the process of fertility decline as in Spain. METHODS The study uses micro longitudinal data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands for a period stretching from the last quarter of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, and demographic measures identical to those used in the Spanish study to test whether the decline in fertility was triggered by the decline in mortality at the level of the family. As religious groups and social classes differed in their ability to correctly assess the implications of mortality levels, and in their willingness, readiness, and ability to react to these changes by adapting their reproductive behavior, we also compared the effect of mortality decline by the religion and the social class of the couples. RESULTS We observed that childhood survival had clear effects on reproduction, the chances of having another child, and the length of the intervals between births, which indicates that this variable was crucial for fertility decisions. This pattern was especially strong after 1900. There were rather consistent and expected differences in the reactions to the survival of children by social class and religious group. Whereas skilled workers were rather sensitive to the number of surviving children, farm families were much less likely to allow their chance to have another child and the length of the intervals between births to be affected by the number of surviving children. Liberal Protestant couples differed sharply from Orthodox Protestant and Catholic couples in their reactions to the increase in the number of surviving children. In both the Netherlands and in Spain, the familial experience of childhood survival was central in determining reproductive strategies, although interesting differences can be seen. CONCLUSIONS Our findings on the large differences in the fertility reactions to (changing) mortality patterns strongly support the idea that there were multiple fertility declines, or a variety of paths to lower fertility. Basically, whether couples implement fertility strategies in reaction to the number of surviving offspring is determined by how people perceive their lives. The willingness and the ability to implement such a reproductive strategy stem from the ability of couples to think about long-term goals; their ability to perceive the way the survival or the death of their offspring affects family size and family well-being over the short, medium, and long term; and the degree to which they are willing to make decisions to achieve those long-term goals. Keywords: children ever born, demographic transition, fertility decline, historical sample of the Netherlands, micro-data, mortality decline, Netherlands, nineteenth century, spacing, Spain, stopping

Standardization of Pathways to Adulthood? An Analysis of Dutch Cohorts Born Between 1850 and 1900

This article examines pathways to adulthood among Dutch cohorts born in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although largely overlooked by previous studies, theory suggests that life courses of young adults born during this period were already influenced by a process of standardization, in the sense that their life courses became more similar over time. Using data from a Dutch registry-based sample, we examine household trajectories: that is, sequences of living arrangements of young adults aged 15–40. Our study shows that for successive cohorts, household trajectories became more similar. We identified six types of trajectories: early death, life-cycle service, early family formation, late family formation, singlehood, and childless but with partner. Over time, early family formation gradually became the “standard” trajectory to adulthood. However, late family formation and singlehood, common pathways within the preindustrial western European marriage pattern, remained widespread among cohorts born in the late nineteenth century. Laboring class youths, farmers’ daughters, young people of mixed religious background, and urban-born youngsters were the nineteenth century forerunners of a standard pathway to adulthood